Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?
by UnseemingOwl
Summary: They've both been left behind, their lives put on hold in rain soaked Forks, but they have a few things in common apart from being angry and lonely. Post Eclipse, ignores Breaking Dawn.


**A/N: ** Highly unorthodox pairing, I know, don't think I've ever come across it anywhere before. It niggled though, something terrible, and had to be written, so yeah. Here it is. Oh, and there's no E/B - not in a positive light at least.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight and it's makers, all belongs to S. Meyer to screw it up as she pleases. Story title (and excerpt) taken from the brilliant Nick Cave song, which I recommend everyone to listen to.

_In a colonial hotel we fucked up the sun_

_And then we fucked it down again_

_Well the sun comes up and the sun goes down_

_Going round and round to nowhere_

_Nick Cave, Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere? _

The first time Jessica hears of Jacob Black, his name barely registers. It's at lunch in the cafeteria, and she's stabbing her peas in a manner so brutal that it makes Angela look worried. Like Jessica might go on a rampage in a Columbine sort of way, though only armed with blunt utensils. Jessica doesn't care, because if she stops stabbing the peas, there is a real danger she might just start stabbing Mike. Repeatedly. With her fork.

It's not that she's jealous. Not really. It's not that she wants Mike back, because she doesn't. Really she doesn't. It's that Bella _fucking_ Swan makes him stutter like a little school boy, and wear that stupid, _stupid_ love sick, puppy dog face. It's that Mike was never like that around her. Not when he asked her out for the first time. Not when they kissed for the first time, his mouth tasting like the sugar frosting of their dessert. Not when he held her hand for the first time, and not the first time he'd his hand down her panties. However he did stutter when he broke up with her, though that might have been because Jessica was sobbing so hard he was afraid her parents would hear them.

Jessica knows that Mike broke up with her to be able to pursue Bella. She knows his tactic, for Mike's qualities were never inventiveness. He'd be all nice and caring while Bella was sad and vulnerable, and then cash the check when she got better. Jessica knows she's maybe just a bit petty when she's delighted at how long he has to wait, because of course Bella Swan doesn't grieve like a normal person. She turns into a zombie for months, after two even Jessica, seething with resentfulness, gets a bit worried. She tries to offer some kind of comforting words, but Bella looks straight through her. She stops trying, Bella's glacial glance freaks her out more than anything else.

It is Mike's great moment, the moment he's been waiting for for months. The moment he can casually ask Bella out, his nervousness inaudible over the din of the cafeteria. Except he's not so suave, he's about as elegant as a bull in a china shop. Jessica knows.

She hears and sees them out of the corner of her eyes. Bella looks terrified for a split second, then quickly suggests they all go. Her friend, Jacob Black, has been wanting to go see this stupid action movie for ages anyways. Mike doesn't just look disappointed, he looks depressed. Jessica smiles into her lunch tray and neatly line four peas on her fork.

She pays a little better attention the second time she hears Jacob Black's name. Mike tells her about him in the blow by blow the following day. Bella spend the entire evening doting on her over dimensioned, wierdo, native american, underage friend, while Mike barfed his guts out in the toilets.

He asks her out a week later. He stutters this time. Jessica says no.

Jacob Black is a rez kid with long crow black hair and ripped shoulders. Mike was surprisingly not exaggerating when describing him as over dimensioned. He looks like the front cover of one of her mother's erotica books. The one with lame titles like 'Swept Away By Savagery'. The ones her mother thinks no one knows about, but that Jessica has been reading in secret since she was twelve. Though the only thing weird about him is how unbelievably gorgeous he is. There is no way he's underage. He looks at least twenty five.

And he makes Bella laugh.

She spots them in the grocery store. In the vegetable section. Bella smiles on occasion now, but Jessica has not seen her laugh since Cullen left. When Jacob cracks a joke across the grapefruits and lemons, Bella laughs so hard her little, heart shaped face lights up entirely. She has never seen Bella let loose like that. Not even when she was with Cullen. Come to think of it, she didn't laugh that much back then either. She just _glowed_ in an infuriating manner.

She leaves the grocery store immediately. The all nighter charges her near double for the price of milk.

The first time Jacob Black sees her is when the Cullens have come back. Jessica just as surprised as everyone else when they suddenly drove into the parking lot one day. Alice's wind-chime frame sidling out, Edward following, not a hair out of place. Bella comes stumbling after, clinging to her ex boyfriend who is obviously not so much ex any more.

For the first few days, Jessica steers completely clear of them. She feels the urge to gag every time she sees them stare into each others eyes. She doesn't get it, doesn't understand how Bella can love someone who left her for an unresponsive freak for almost half a year. Besides, Jessica remembers how Bella laughed with Jacob Black.

Then one day Jacob is there. After school, with everyone milling out. Jessica is not the only girl to pause in her steps and watch the (if possible even bigger) exotic looking man. He's cropped off his long dark hair to an uneven, short frizz. Even his jeans have been mistreated and ripped, and his t-shirt looks like it might be on the verge of doing the same. It has to burst sooner or later with the strain of containing all those russet coloured muscles. he's leaning against a bad ass, black Harley like the epitome of a bad boy.

Their eyes connect for a brief moment, and Jacob grins at her. She barely has the time to feel the thick pulse of heat in her belly, before someone is pushing past her. The someone is Bella who launches herself directly into the arms of her rebound boy. Their hug is way too close and intimate for a friendly one.

Apparently not everything is perfect in paradise.

The next time she sees him is on the posters Charlie Swan hangs all over the town. 'Have you seen this boy?' is posed from all directions. He doesn't smile in the photo. It seems wrong to Jessica, he always seems to smile.

Edward and Isabella Cullens wedding is a revoltingly picture perfect affair. It's like something out of a sappy chick flick. It's all ribbons, laces and powder coloured roses, and she cannot see Bella in even an inch of it. Least of all in the bride herself. Clumsy, no fuss Bella is hidden somewhere in the white silk and perfect make up.

Jessica feels completely out of place amongst all the _insanely _beautiful people. All the others of Bella's friends and family looks like they're in a similar state of discomfort. It's like they're all something that's just a little bit embarrassing, something disruptive in the elegant setting, like a fart at a dinner party.

Jessica doesn't even mind that much when Mike takes her hand. She feels mismatched and his clammy palm is oddly soothing to her. She catches Bella's eye and the girl smile at her, Jessica is not quite sure her answering pull of lips is convincing.

It's not that she's jealous of the wedding, because it's so overdone that even Jess would be embarrassed to have such a wedding. It's not that she wants Edward, that ship has long since sailed. It's not that she's envious of the marriage, because Jess' parents got married at eighteen, and look where that got them... It's the way Edward looks at Bella, worship and adoration in his eyes. No one has ever looked at Jess like that.

So she downs a flute of champagne, only to realise that it's not that easy downing champagne. The bubbles makes it difficult to swallow the big gulps. She grimaces and takes another one, before she ducks out of the main party hall. The rest of the house is silent when she closes the door behind her. They must have had it soundproofed, for she can't even hear the strains of the wedding band.

She feels a vague tingle of excitement at being alone in the mysterious Cullen house, free to roam. It's dark, the moon drawing silver lines on the immaculate wooden floors. She kicks off her strappy sandals, and picks them up. The floor is cool against the soles of her feet as she walks around in the eerily quiet house.

She's speculated how the interiors of the Cullen house would look countless of times. Just after the Cullens moved in, and they learned how rich they were, how everyone in the family was involved with each other, her and Mike used to joke about they were some kind of cult. The house had to be a creepy place filled with religious symbols and skulls. Now that the last boy has a wife, they might go of to commit mass suicide.

It's not creepy, it's tasteful and minimalistic, although there is a room with religious paintings and a great wooden cross. It looks like a study, probably Dr. Cullen's, it would suit the saintly medical man. It's cold though, like no one bothers to heat the house.

They have a music room. Well, really there is just a beautiful ebony piano in a large room all by itself. She carefully places her drink down on the lid and presses a few of the keys. Enormous panorama windows looking out over a patio, the forest spreading out behind it. Suddenly there is movement at the other end of the patio. Someone it 's shirtless in a pair of cut off jeans, and splattered with mud and leaves. It looks like he's been dragged through the forest for days. Bella is next. The silk of her dress shimmers in the moonlight. She seems so pale she is almost like a ghost.

Jessica watches them. They hug for an eternity. It's a beautiful spectacle of dark and light against each other. They finally start talking, but Jessica can't hear what they are saying. Jacob still keeps his arms tight around her, at least until the end of it, when he starts shaking her. He's angry, he's even trembling with it, and he is starting to yell. Bella is crying, but Jessica still can't tell what they are saying. She presses herself closer to the window.

"Stanley." Jessica nearly jumps out of her skin when suddenly there's a cold hand on her shoulder. She spins around to face Rosalie, the blonde's exquisite features completely neutral. "Newton is looking for you."

"Oh, thank you." She watches the display out of the corner of her eyes. Edward, Emmett and Jasper has joined them on the terrace. Edward is holding Bella possessively against him, while Jacob is being dragged away by three of his tribe mates, all of whom are just as big and bad looking as Jacob. He looks feral and furious to be manhandled like that. Bella looks miserable. She turns back to Rosalie whose face is no longer composed, but looks almost tormented.

She looks down at Jessica. "Yeah I know, I still hope the girl is going to come to her senses before it's too late..." There is something disquieting about the way Rosalie says those words, and Jessica's head is suddenly filled with thoughts of cults and mass suicide once again.

"Watch out with the champagne by the way, that's a 1832 Steinway piano..."

The first time Jessica actually talks to Jacob is months after the wedding. Bella and Edward has long since returned from their honey moon, and are long gone again, along with the rest of the Cullens. They've headed out east. Bella and Edward to attend Dartmouth together.

She has said goodbye to Lauren, to Tyler, to Angela and Ben and to Mike. She's helped them load the cars with brown cardboard boxes. She's watched them drive away to a new part of their life, herself to be left behind. Jessica's mom can't afford college until next year, and Jessica doesn't want to waste time at the community college.

So Jessica works at the coffee shop three times a week, and at the beauty salon three times a week. She at most makes a café latté, a Macchiato if someone is feeling adventurous. She washes the hair and files the nails of the bored house wives who chat to her about the lack of sex in their marriage and how the kids are stressing them out.

The relationship with her mother has never been easy, but now it takes even less for her to snap. She feels she goes just a little more insane every time she slams her door. At the same time though, she just want to cry against her mother's chest like you can only cry out at you mother. She goes out with the burn out Andy Grazer a few times, even lets him cup a feel on the last date they have. She watches the rain soak the already wet forest, the steady drip of water outside her window like the unbearably slow tick of a clock.

She's so bored she wants to scream.

It's a whole month before Lauren thinks to call her. She goes on and on for half an hour about how great things are in sunny California, not once asking Jessica how she is holding up back in Forks. Jessica tells her to go fuck herself and hangs up.

She almost drives past Jacob Black the day he happens to walk along the road. It's raining so hard she can barely see, and she's trying to fix her make up so she doesn't look like a drowned rat. She's so shocked to see him wandering half naked outside that she steps on the break without thinking. Hard. The car screeches to a halt, and Jacob glances up at her. He looks like he's been through hell and back. Although it could just be because of the rain, but he's not even shivering, despite the fact it's almost freezing outside.

She opens the window. "Hey Jacob..." He peers into car, and Jessica feels embarrassed about the way her mascara is clumping up her eye lashes. She should have known better to not use water proof during February in Forks. "What the hell are you doing outside half naked in this weather?"

He puts his hands on the edge of the window, they are enormous. "Would you believe me if I said it was recreational, like winter bathing?"

"Not a chance Black, jump in." She reaches over and opens the door, he still hesitates.

"La Push is not on your way home."

"Oh Christ Jacob, just get into the fucking car, you'll spare me another fifteen minutes in the company of my mom." He finally smiles, and Jessica's heart stutters unevenly. He folds himself into the car with some difficulty.

She grins apologetically. "Sorry, we're not used to having guys your size tagging along for the ride."

"It's no problem, thanks for the lift." He finally settles himself and Jess turns around the car to head the other way. Their eyes connect for half a second and Jessica feels a heady flash between her legs. Forget Edward's cold, ethereal beauty, for Jacob is fire. She can see it in his dark eyes. She can almost see how his skin is crackling with all the anger it tries to contain.

The silence is a bit uncomfortable. There is a million questions that Jessica wants to ask him, though she's not quite sure how to pose them to this unapproachable stranger. "So how are you holding up?" She grimaces inwardly at how squeaky her voice sounds.

"Fine. Just school and then I work in this auto shop on the way to Sappho..."

"Nice." She smiles at him, and he returns it, it's a sarcastic and rueful one, but still a smile.

"Not really, he robs me blind, but it's work, so it's okay."

She nods vaguely, bites her lip and looks out onto the road again. "So why are you still here? Shouldn't you be off to college somewhere?"

"Yeah, well... My mom couldn't afford it this year, so I'm here until next year." She nods to herself, bites her lip again. It had stopped being painful to say months ago, but somehow saying it to Jacob made the old wound rip up again.

"So you're stuck here until september? That sucks."

"Yeah, pretty much does. I hate this town."

They are silent again until she turns into La Push. The mud sludges up around the tires, and all the little red houses look the same. She looks questioningly at Jacob, who tells her to continue until they come to a house further down the tracks. She watches how the muscles plays across his back when he jumps out of the car, and her breath hitches softly.

"You know..." He turns around and leans half into the car again. The brimy, salty smell of the sea fills her nose. "Your muffler doesn't sound too good..." He grins at her dumbstruck expression. "In your car Jessica. Come by some time, I'll take a look at it for you."

She feels happy for the first time in a long time. "Thank you, Il'l do that."

They become friends the day Jessica comes with the car a week later. He fixes the muffler and changes the oil while she waits on an old milk crate. The rock music crackling from the battered ghettoblaster in the corner mixes with the sharp patter of rain on the roof. She watches him while he works. He moves with an amazing agility considering his size, especially his hands, they comb through the engine with calm assuredness.

She tries to ask him about life as a Native American, desperately trying to be as politically correct and inoffensive as possible. Jacob's oil streaked face comes up from the car with eyes and for the first time he actually looks like he's amused. He talks a bit about the council, about poverty and the rez school, and he uses every single racist term in the book about himself and his people. It makes Jessica flinch and squirm, her sense of political correctness protesting violently. Her horrified expression makes Jacob laugh so hard the tears stream down his face. She touches him for the first time then, though it is just a swat on his shoulder.

The engine purrs when she starts it again. She tells Jacob so. He laughs and wipes his hands on a already dirty cloth, before he tells her to come by some other time again.

She picks him up from work the next time. He squeezes himself into the car without complaint. They pull over at rickety high way diner. The kind you only see in the movies with languid, bluesy music playing on the loudspeakers and a depressed looking waitress. They chatter back and forward the entire evening, Jacob wolfs down three cheese burgers and two milk shakes. Jessica insists to pay.

Jessica really loves it when she can make Jacob laugh or smile, especially if it really removes that tortured look in his eyes.

She never mentions Isabella Swan –_ Cullen _with a word. The few times she does so, he freezes up entirely, so she's settled for not talking about her.

One day he picks her up from the beauty parlour. Jessica is just laying the finishing touches on Mrs. Donner's nail polish, when all the women in the shop suddenly start to chatter excitedly. She looks up and spots Jacob on the other side of the glass. She can't blame all the bored housewives, he looks delicious with scruffy hair, ripped jeans and a black t-shirt that clings to his flat abs. When their eyes connect he grins and waves at her. The cooing immediately turns to Jessica, who wraps up as quick as she can. She shakes off the lewd comments, not even a blush giving away her embarrassment.

He hugs her when she exits the shop, and she can practically hear the excited chatter rise to new levels inside. She just knows that all the housewives will be rubbing one out with Jacob Black in their thoughts that night. Jacob winks at her, and leads her down to the second hand record and book store off the main road. They discovered their mutual love for whiskey soaked, depressive songs by morose voiced male singers in the diner. There is hardly ever anyone in shop, so the owner let's them do their thing. They each pick out and album that the other has to listen to, and they'll lounge next to each other in the small sofa. They don't talk much, though every once in a while they'll lean over to bitch over or compliment the other one's taste. As time wears on Jessica gets bolder and starts resting her legs on Jacob's thighs. He doesn't object. Jessica only watches him when he has his eyes closed.

The first time Jessica kisses Jacob Black is on a damp golf course, belly fizzing with bourbon and Nick Cave crooning in the back ground.

They've been loitering about in his living room, his father is off at Charlie Swan's to watch some kind of sports game. Jacob is in a depressive funk, she can tell by the way, he only smiles half heartedly at jokes that would normally make him laugh. It's a Bella depression, she knows, it always is. So she orders him to get a bottle of booze, bring his ghetto blaster and meet her at the La Push cross way at eight p.m. She dodges his questions and drive them to the country club.

They climb the fence, and she ignores Jacob's admiration of her unexpected breaking and entering tendencies. Lauren's father owns the place. Her and Lauren broke in the summer before, she figures Lauren has forgotten she gave her a set of keys for the outside storage rooms. She makes Jacob carry the set of golf clubs and the bucket of golf balls she scavenges.

She puts in the Nick Cave mix cd and looks expectantly at Jacob. His puzzlement has been mounting throughout the process, and by now he looks completely flabbergasted. "You care to tell me what this is about Jess? I mean, as thrilling as it was with the whole breaking and entering thing, what's cool about bumming it on a golf course?"

She rolls her eyes at him and then move a golf ball into place. "We're not here to 'bum it' Jacob, we're here for therapy, of the radical kind."

"Oh..." He doesn't look reassured, quite the opposite in fact, but unfaced, she pokes at him with the golf club until he sits down. He looks a bit worried that she might start beating him with it.

"Watch and learn Indian Boy," she smiles and snaps her fingers at him. "Hand me the booze will you?" He wordlessly obeys, and Jessica hides her grin at the fact she has him following her orders without question.

She takes a swig of the Bourbon for the nerves it burns her throat at the way down, and she forces back the initial reaction to gag. It's been a year since she did this the last time, and that was with Lauren, and really it wasn't that serious. The game is an entirely different animal this time. The song on the ghetto blaster switches, and the well known strains of languid guitar fills the crisp night air. "My Dad used to dance with me to this song you know," she begins conversationally.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. He loved Nick Cave, it's one of the few memories I still have of him. That and the smell of Bourbon of course..." Her lips twist into a wry pout and she washes down the bitterness with the burn of the liquor. "He left when I was six years old, I burned this song on a cd for his birthday and sent to him when I was twelve. He sent it back, it'd been opened and everything, but he still sent it back." She blindly hands him the booze and then grip the golf club. She swings it as hard as she can, and the ball disappears somewhere in the trees. "Your turn."

"What?" Jacob looks panic stricken.

"Drink, tell me something about your life that sucks, and then swing away, that's the rules."

"The rules of what?"

"'Ways My Life Sucks' of course. Go ahead." She hands him the golf club, and Jacob hesitantly grips it before standing up. He looks like he is considering to bolt.

"Booze is liquid courage," she reminds him. "Come on Jacob, it doesn't have to be serious, it can just be lame stuff."

"Alright, alright." He looks half way harassed, and Jessica almost laughs at the thought, like she could ever boss someone Jacob's size around.

"Oh and don't hold back when the flow comes..."

"What flow?"

"Trust me, you'll know," she thrusts the bottle into his hand and then looks away, giving him his privacy.

It's silent for a looooooong moment. She can hear Jacob breathing unsteadily, nervously. Then finally she hears him shuffle his feet and he speaks. "I fucking hate school. It's so fucked up that I still have to deal with Geography and Phys-ed with all the stuff going on."

"Not to mention you're build like a tank, you don't need to take phys-ed." She chips in and Jacob half smiles down at her.

"Yeah." He swings the club so hard the thwack of it resounds over the green lawns.

"Jeeze man, don't break the thing," she half laughs, and follows the balls ramming through the air. "Good shot." He grins at her appraisal.

They take turns for a while. Jess spews bile against her mother, against Lauren, against the floozies at the salon, against Mike who rather wants Bella. Jacob rages against his dead mother, his invalid father, his sisters, his friends and finally the flow comes, it breaks when Jessica mentions Bella in her Mike tirade.

"I fucking hate Edward Cullen."

_Slam_

"I fucking hate all of them."

_Slam_

"I hate that Bella loves him!"

_Slam_

"I hate that she talks about destiny," _Slam_ "and how she can't fucking live without him," _Slam_ "It's a fucking lame excuse!"

_Slam! Slam!_

"I hate that she says she doesn't want to hurt me, but she just keeps on _fucking_ doing it!"

_Slam!_

"I fucking hate Bella Swan!"

_Slam!_

"I fucking hate her!"

_Crack_

The last golf ball splinters when he hits it, the pieces raining across the field. It only seems to make him more angry, and he starts beating the ground with the golf club, the turf flying around him in green and brown clumps. He's gasping and trembling. His skin almost quakes with his rage. Jess wraps her arms around her legs and watches him silently. Finally he flings away the bent out of shape golf club with a roar and collapses onto all fours on the beaten up lawn. For a moment all that can be heard apart from the sluggish voice on the cd, is Jacob's frantic panting. His fingers dig into the grass and he groans with something that sounds like pain. She doesn't even dare speak. At last he relaxes, and his hands rests on the ground. He mutters into the grass, she's not sure what he says, but she hears disjointed words like _love, fuck, hate _and_ Bella, Bella.._. She ignores it and swallows thickly before she speaks.

"Better?"

"Yeah." He sounds exhausted, and he still heaves for breath when he downs the last of the liquor. Jessica pats the ground next to her. Bonelessly he slumps down beside her.

"Smoke?" She thrusts the packet of cigarettes out to him, while she lights her own. She is feeling a bit rattled after that display of fury and tries to keep her hands from shaking.

"Yeah."

He lights it, the flicker of the lighter throw disjointed shadows on his face. They lie down in silence. Nick Cave is still crooning out in the chilly starlit night. The smoke prickles softly in her lungs and the booze still buzzes pleasantly in her brain.

"You know Jacob..." She turns her head, but Jake is already there, his face right next to hers. She barely has time to gulp at the intent in his eyes before his lips are pressed against hers. Blindly she stubs out her cigarette and pulls him closer to her. His lips are softer than anything, and he tastes like sharp, spicy ashes. Her hands plays along the ripples of muscles in his back as their tongues meet in a warm, slick rasp. She sighs softly and sink back into the murky, pine scent of his skin. She doesn't think of anything else. Not of Bella Swan, not of what she has just witnessed. She doesn't want to.

The first time Jessica has sex with Jacob Black, it is not exactly romantic, but Jessica doesn't mind. It's been a while since she has had any illusions about being 'deflowered'. Between Mike's clumsy overeagerness and Lauren who told her to just get it over with, there wasn't really any room for it. Besides, when has her and Jacob been romantic about whatever it is they have?

So when Jacob kisses her with burning lips in the garage, the rain pelting down on the roof with the force of cannon balls, Jessica does not resist. She lets him push her down on the hood of his car, wrapping her legs around his hips. He moves with the confident intent of a grown man, but his eyes are a mix of fear, insecurity and awe.

His hands shakes as they move over her breasts and fumbles into her underwear. She gasps into his neck as his calloused fingers friction across the slick folds between her legs. She can't hear his moans, the rain is coming down too hard, but she can feel it travel through him when he fits a finger inside of her, her sex clenching around him.

He's not wearing underwear, but Jessica hardly gets to touch him, hot, soft and hard, he's too on edge. She barely flinch when he snaps through her hymen in one violent thrust, but the jagged punch of pain in her loins knocks the breath from her lungs. She bites down hard on his shoulder and squirm to adjust as he slowly pushes himself home.

"Are you okay Jess?" His voice is a breathless groan against her ear, and Jess nods. She's panting frantically, just as out of breath as he is.

"Yeah, just give me a second, I'm fine..."

He trembles all over as she embrace him, like a wire about to snap. "I have to move Jess, I'm sorry..." He gasps after a few moments, too soon, everything still feels too raw down there. He shifts carefully, and Jess groans. It's a confused rush of pain and pleasure as he surges into her. Sharp slick and light heavy. She bites her teeth and determinedly pushes past the pain, once again biting down on his shoulder as she hungrily lifts her hips. Everything aches. Their lower bodies roll together, steadily, a bit clumsily, but Jess doesn't care about that really. She clings to his shoulders and for a moment he looks up from her neck. His face is tense and his eyes are all frantic and warm. She averts her gaze and spreads her legs further, he fits perfectly into the cradle of her hips.

She starts to feel that heady coiling deep in her belly, and she desperately pulls him closer, deeper, but Jake can't hold out. She often forgets it, because he looks much older, but he is only seventeen and a virgin just like her. He's embarrassed about it when she admits she didn't come. She kisses his jaw and his neck, and tells him it doesn't matter. As far as Jessica is concerned, it's pretty impressive for a first time.

Three days later she's back again. She pushes away the blanket Jacob offers for her knees, and settles down in front of his much too small bed. She clutches onto the sheets while he thrusts into her from behind. This time there's no pain, just hot, wet clenching and Jacob filling her deep, so deep... Her desperate moans would have shocked her had she cared, it feels too good to care about anything than Jake inside of her, tearing her open. Just when he's about to come she tells him to stop and makes him talk instead. He willingly babbles into the curve of her shoulder blade. "So wet, you're so wet. You're so soft Jess." She makes him do it three times, before she finally orgasms with her hand between her soaked folds and his choked 'Christ... you're so fucking _tight_..." still ringing in her ears.

She proudly examines her carpet burned knees in the mirror that night.

When Angela calls for her every second week check up Jessica doesn't tell her anything. It's usually just conversations about the books they're reading or a cd they're listening to. There isn't that much to tell, not much to be proud of. The fights with her mother, the boredom at her job. The dreadful monotony. She doesn't want to make Angela feel bad. She hasn't said anything about Jacob at all, and now she's fucking him, an underage high school student, who's in love with someone else. Not much to tell, not much to be proud of.

They do it in all kinds of different ways. In his car, on the floor, against the wall, in the shower, in his small rickety bed while his father is just in the next room (Jacob puts his big hand over her mouth and tells her to be quiet). They fuck with him on top, with her on top, he fucks her from behind, sideways, sitting and standing. Jess likes it best hard and unrestrained, with Jacob moaning into her ear, and his hands on her breasts.

The one time he's actually gentle, it doesn't end well. He makes her look him in the eye the entire time, while he pushes so deep into her she can't really decide where he ends and she begins. Instead of the peace that usually follows after her orgasm, she feels far too much. She turns away from him and cries. Jessica asks him to please not do it to her like that again. He doesn't. He never makes love to her again. The next time they fuck, he's so rough, she still aches two days later.

The day that she looses Jacob Black is the day Bella Swan returns to town. Not that she ever really had him, but she likes to pretend that she did.

She is swinging out of La Push, when she spots a beat up, red truck. It takes her a few seconds to remember it, because it's been a long time since Bella last drove it. Then it's beside her, and they make eye contact. Bella looks surprised, but she still smiles and waves awkwardly. Jessica's hand feel lead heavy when she automatically returns it. She can feel the sticky remains of Jacob and herself between her legs.

She feels her face go stony as soon as Bella has passed her and she grips the wheel so tight her knuckles turn white. She drives around for the rest of the evening. At some point she hears her cell phone ring in the back seat. She doesn't pick it up. She goes to the small diner where her and Jake ate burgers and milk shakes, and pokes at her fries while Tom Waits rasps his way through 'Green Grass'.

When she returns home at midnight her mother fills her in on the details. Bella is now divorced, a college drop out and living with her father. Jessica tries to shut out her mother's exuberant chatty voice.

When she's alone in her room she finally checks her cell phone. There's a voice mail waiting for her. She starts it and hold it to her ear. By now she knows exactly how Jacob's breathing sounds.

There is three deep, shuddering breaths trembling over the line, before he finally speaks. "You probably already know..." A long deep sigh... "I'm so sorry Jess..."

For a moment she weighs the phone in her hand, it seems much too light. Then she drops the phone to the floor and wraps herself up in her duvets. Everything is so silent around her. She's not quite sure she wants to get up again.

Bella comes to see her at the coffee shop. Jessica has to remind herself it isn't weird, after all they used to be sort of friends. Bella confesses to her about how being married to Edward was nothing like she imagined, how she felt suffocated and trapped. She tells her about how much she missed Jacob, and how she realised that it was Jacob and not Edward she couldn't live without. Jessica wonders why the hell Bella is telling her all of this, but then remembers that Jake used to be Bella's confidant. Jessica is the only one left. Bella tells her how much she loves Jake and wants to right all the wrong she did to him

Jessica hides her grimaces, but her hands shake just a little while she pours the coffees. She hates how earnest Bella is sounding, how her pale face has a determined, but soft glow about it. Bella never looked like that when she was with Cullen. She just watched him in doe eyed wonder.

Jessica is a bit freaked out how good friends Bella seems determined to make them. It's impossible to escape, and after a while she just stop trying. She can't figure out how much Jake has told Bella, for Bella thanks her for all that she has done for Jake, but Jessica just refuses to believe that Bella would be so benevolent if she knew. She has good days and bad days. On the bad days she hates Bella's guts and feels the urge to scald her pretty face with hot coffee. On the good it's actually nice to pour her heart out about 'Jerome' the dark featured, handsome, French Canadian from Seattle. Bella is an amazingly good listener and pats her shoulder sympathetically.

The first time she sees Jacob kiss Bella Swan is in the grocery store. She's picking up milk (again). Jacob is joking with Bella over the grapefruits and lemons (again). Bella laughs without restraint, her little heart shaped face alit (again). This time she's also _glowing_ in this infuriating manner. Jacob kisses her softly across the citrus fruit stand. She has never seen him look so happy.

The all nighter charges her near double the price of milk.

She says goodbye to Jacob the day that she leaves Forks. Her mother is in the kitchen preparing lunch for the drive there.

She stuffed the last brown card board boxes into the trunk, and when she slams it shut, there he is. Freakishly tall and beautiful. "Jesus Christ Jake, give a little warning will you?"

She holds her hand to her chest for a second to still her wildly beating heart, and sees how his eyes flicker to her breasts for a half a second, before settling on her face. There's a grim satisfaction in it. She knows her rack is better than Bella's, not that it matters anymore. Bella has already been there to say good bye, so obviously Jake has things to say that Bella is not allowed to hear.

"You're not supposed to leave until next month."

She doesn't look at him, merely continues putting stuff into the car, this time into the back seat. "Yeah, well some girl quit at Angela's job, she put in a good word for me. It'll give me some time to settle before school begins."

She curses as she tries to wrestle the foot of her floor lamp into the bottom, then Jake's hands are there, strong and sure, smoothly guiding the furniture inside. She mutters a thank you, still keeping her eyes averted. "Were you going to leave without telling me?"

She looks up, his voice is just too earnest not to do so. His wide dark eyes are warm, and more than a little sad. She tries not to flinch, but of course Jake notices after all. It make him look even sadder, and Jess feels the crack in her heart break open just a little wider. "I didn't know you'd care?"

"Care?" He looks furious, and the night on the golf course flashes before her inner eye. "Of course I care, don't you know how much you've helped me Jess?" He talks so insistently, and Jess wants to tuck his shaggy black hair out of his face. She clenches her hand around the lamp. "I would've gone insane if you hadn't been around."

She quickly moves out of his ratio and wipes her dusty hands on her jeans. She sighs heavily. "The same goes for me Jake, you know that. It's just that..." She doesn't finish the sentence, there is really no reason for her to make it more difficult.

The hug he pulls her into is painful. He holds her so tenderly. She breathe in his scent of pine needles and damp forest ground. "Thank you so much Jess, I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't be Jake, honestly." She puts her arms around him. She has never known anyone who can hug her like this. Also she doesn't have to look at his face with her cheek resting on his much too warm chest. "I want you to be happy. I really do."

"If Bella hadn't..."

She pulls away from the embrace immediately "Don't Jake. Do not say that to me..."

He looks shameful for a second, added to the fact that he looks decidedly uncomfortable being there. She doesn't blame him, she would be too, but it matters more to her than he can possible know that he's making the attempt.

"I've seen you with her Jake. You look so fucking happy when you're around her. I want that for you, you deserve it. You really do." She breaks off on yet another sigh, and scratches her forehead frustratedly. "You like me, I know that, but you _love_ Bella Swan, really love her... So go off into the sunset with her, and just you know... Be happy for fucks sake."

"Are we still friends?" He's touching her again, he always has to touch people, it gets a bit too much at times, like now.

"Sure. Give me year's time to find a nice, thick headed jock, and we'll be back where we started." She can see her mother watching them from the door. She looks a little puzzled, which is not really strange she suppose. Her mother hasn't seen them together, though she suppose the ladies at the salon has filled her in. Her lips twists into a half smile when she continues. "Besides I won't have a choice, Bella seems to suddenly like me as her friend, so yeah..."

"Jess..." Her mother is moving out, arms filled a basket of food. "We have to get going soon if we want to avoid the traffic.

"Yeah sure, Jacob just wanted to say a quick goodbye..."

He's already pulling her into another hug when she turns her face back to him. "Thank you Jess..."

She watches him out the back window while they drive down the road. He's standing unmovable in the grey sunshine.

"Who was that Jess?" Her mother's voice is warm, but curious as always.

"Just Bella Swan's boyfriend..."


End file.
